Page 53 of Lost and Bound
Well, shit.
Chapter 14
Your Shirt’s Inside Out
“Hi!” Nate said brightly. “Hey! What’s up?”
I winced. Calder’s mouth tightened, and Ian was about to pop claws, I could feel and scent it in the suddenly thick air.
Nate trotted over to Ian and stretched up to kiss his cheek.
“So Jared’s actually Jared,” he said, still way too cheerfully. “Good news, right? Arik double-checked. He’s missing his spleen, though.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m missing it, exactly,” I said, desperately hoping to lighten the mood. Nate laughed. The others didn’t.
Fuck my life. What the hell did Ian think we’d been doing in the woods alone, anyway? For that matter, what did Calder think? Ian couldn’t possibly believe Nate and I had been fooling around, and Calder…yeah, he might not trust any warlock at this point, but I’d come out of the woods smiling and laughing. It wasn’t like Nate had been torturing me.
Ian glared at me. Calder justlookedat me, and I didn’t know which I hated more. Calder seemed to be waiting for something, one eyebrow slightly raised. What? Fuck, I wasn’t a mind-reader.
I glanced at Nate, hoping he had more psychic ability than I did.Help me! Something better than ‘Hey, what’s up?’
Maybe he got the message, or maybe he felt the tension as much as I did, but either way he grabbed Ian by the elbow. “Head back to the Shack of Solitude with me? There’s, um, some important stuff to discuss with you.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up, and as I fought to keep it in, Nate threw me a wink over his shoulder.
Ian actually growled. Fuck, Nate had no sense of self-preservationat all. Ian wrapped an arm around Nate’s waist and started dragging him off without a word. Shit, Nate would be lucky to be able to walk after what Ian was going to dish out…and then Nate glanced back one more time, flashing me a self-satisfied grin.
Okay, so maybe he knewexactlywhat he was getting himself into.
I turned back to Calder, who’d gone even grimmer.
Heat pooled in my belly. Christ, this mating bond—or who knew, the loss of my spleen—had really done a number on me. He looked at me like that, and part of me wanted to bend over and beg. My cock being one part, but the muscles in my ass clenched involuntarily too. He’d fucked me so long and so deeply the night before that I shouldn’t have wanted him again.
But the only thing stopping me was the idea of being stuck on his knot at the bottom of the garden, right when it looked like it might start raining any second. And knowing my luck, rain or not, half the pack would decide to come out and take the air. Matt might have told them to make themselves scarce for now, but I knew my pack. Their curiosity was a much stronger force than their obedience.
“So I’m me,” I said, for lack of anything else that didn’t boil down to ‘take me now.’ “Like Nate said, Arik double-checked. I’m definitely me.”
“I didn’t doubt it.”
Okay, that didn’t have quite the enthusiasm I’d been looking for.
“That means they’ll trust me again,” I said. “My family. I can really come home. For real.”
Calder let out a little grunt. “Yeah, Ian really looked like he trusts you.”
“Okay, not fair. Look, yeah, Nate and I have a history—”
“You fucked his mate.”
“He wasn’t his mate at the time!” Calder’s eyebrow lifted a little more. Dammit. “Look, Ian liked him, I knew that. But it wasn’t anything serious.” Except that it had been. Obviously. I tried again. “It all worked out in the end.”
Calder moved at last, stalking forward. Prowling. I stood my ground, but it wasn’t easy. “It worked out. So much that you come tumbling out of the woods with Nate, laughing and winking at each other.”
“Nothing—”
“And your shirt’s inside out,” he growled, looming over me, silver eyes flashing.
“Arik had me take it off for the exam,” I gritted out. “I didn’t—oh, for fuck’s sake. You’d be able to smell it on me if I’d been getting up to anything with Nate. And why the hell do you care? You and Ian suddenly best friends now?”
“Anyone who had a hand in taking care of Arik when I couldn’t is all right with me,” Calder rasped at me. “And don’t change the fucking subject.”
